A visit to the mosque was not the only thing on Shakoor’s mind after he got his freedom back.
Like many formerly incarcerated people re-entering society, there was a long list of needs to attend to, many complicated by his status as a person with a felony conviction: securing housing, catching up with loved ones, finding work.
He fared better than most, getting a job at a Bay Area Middle Eastern restaurant called Falafel Corner several weeks after his release. The skills he had fine-tuned with makeshift hot plates in his cell and prison kitchens were now put to work building a new career, and he quickly moved up to managing the restaurant.
In 2016, the restaurant opened a second location in Sacramento, and in 2018, Shakoor bought out the former owner. He says the business now has more than 30 franchises around northern California.
If cooking was one skill that Shakoor continued to build after leaving prison, his interest in criminal justice reform work was another.
In 2014, Shakoor, who had remotely obtained a degree from Ohio University while incarcerated, testified at the State Senate in support of SB 1391, which expanded access to college education for people incarcerated in California’s prisons. The bill was passed and signed into law in September 2014.
In 2023, he also became a vocal supporter of SB 309, which created universal standards applying to religious grooming and headwear across California’s detention facilities.
He drew on his own experiences of harassment for expression of religious devotion behind bars, recalling an incident in 2002 when he was sent to solitary confinement for seven days for refusing to remove his chitrali cap, important to his identity a